Employees who help regulate hazardous waste. Inspectors who check the quality of federal housing. An office that makes sure students with disabilities get the help they need. These are among the targets of the Trump administration’s latest round of federal layoffs. https://wapo.st/471cD6V

There is no insurrection in Portland unless you consider an uptick of people wearing inflatable frog costumes an insurrection. No one is falling for this absurd propaganda, and there is NO justification for deploying our troops against peaceful American citizens.

This is what they should all do if guests won’t respond to questions. Otherwise, it’s just a platform for GOP lies.

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

“Everyone is lying about crime but us.” “Everyone is lying about climate change but us.” “Everyone is lying about vaccines but us.” “Everyone is lying about our Medicaid cuts but us.” “Everyone is lying about voter fraud but us.”

Why wasn't this a bigger story? Odd

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought. "By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

Do you see where this is headed?

Tonight on #ChoralShowcase, @WETAClassical host Bill Bukowski will mark #IndigenousPeoplesDay with two settings of the Mass: a Mass of the Americas by Frank LaRocca and Misa Criolla by Ariel Ramirez. Tune in or stream at 9 p.m. EDT. weta.org/fm/features/...

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...” apnews.com/article/pope...

“For me, protest is about love of country.” Timothy Snyder The #LoveOfCountry theme must go viral. #NoKings protests aren’t just about this moment, when the #Trump administration mass-fires feds and holds back funding illegally, but about the future generations whose fates are at stake.

GOP Congress could stop this destruction of US capability anytime it wanted. If only they wanted to.

Policy, comms, ethics, and science management (the people who clear science docs — determine whether they meet scientific standards) heavily hit. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report staff are gone.

Per CDC source: At internal leadership meeting this afternoon, it was shared that 1,257 people were RIF'd at CDC. Number may not be final. Apparently, chief of staff was unaware that RIFs were going to occur so not clear who is making decisions. (Short 🧵)

Russell Vought is a vandal of U.S. government capacity. It's like we elected the Taliban and they are destroying the foundations of government the way the Taliban dynamited the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

In light of the lies Republicans are pushing about #NoKings demonstrations, I'm posting images from YEARS of peaceful protests. Peaceful protests are not only as American as apple pie but a constant means of calling out #DonaldTrump, who's often used violent speech and threats in his remarks.

Donald Trump said he was going to release his healthcare plan to replace the Affordable Care Act in “two weeks,” 159 weeks ago. Republicans’ only plan for your healthcare is to cut it.

Trump has as high a body count as just about anyone in the world thanks to USAid alone. Let alone all the more intense violence.

Not that Cillizza deserves a response, but—in the sense that hes deeply representative of the intellectual & moral rot at the heart of political news media—its v indicative of their mentality that he doesnt consider murdering ppl in the Caribbean or disappearing ppl domestically an affront to peace

you could walk through Times Square buck naked with one of those car-dealership inflatable men tethered to your head, setting off bottle rockets as you go, and you would not be as desperate for attention than this sweaty twerp

DOJ prosecutors in Virginia under Erik Seibert didn't believe they gathered enough evidence to charge Letitia James. So Trump pressured Seibert to resign and replaced him with a loyalist (and former personal attorney) who would. Even Nixon made efforts to hide his corruption.

BREAKING: Letitia James held Trump accountable & now he’s hijacking the DOJ to indict her in retaliation This isn’t justice, it’s abuse of power We will be amending our existing ethics complaint against Halligan & pursuing other legal measures www.democracydefendersfund.org/prs/10.09.25...

Once upon a time, the social media accounts of federal agencies weren't a stream of fascist, white nationalist garbage interlaced with whiny culture-war posts. Earlier this year, even!

This is the way

#ChoralShowcase is back again this evening on WETA Classical. Bill Bukowski's special focus is the conductor Matthew Best, who founded the Corydon Singers. Hear their recordings of works by Brahms, Britten:, Bruckner, Howells, and Mendelssohn at 9 p.m. EDT. weta.org/fm/features/...

And while these messages are blatant violations of the Hatch Act, the administration sent out a Hatch Act policy to all federal employees this week to remind them that THEY must follow Hatch Act on Social media. END/

The shutdown is not the fault of democrats. Republicans can vote to fund the government without a single democrat by changing the rules to lower the 60 vote threshold like they did two weeks ago to push through 48 trump appointees at once. 10/

And here’s an email that went out to all Veterans - not just employees of the VA - that came into my inbox. 9/

Here’s one for the Department of Commerce. 8/

And the Social Security Administration. 7/

Here’s one for employees at the National Archives. 6/

This is an all employee announcement to employees of the Department of the Interior with the same baseless lies. These are all violations of the Hatch Act, by the way. 5/

Here’s an email to VA employees with the same language. 4/

Here’s an email to Department of Homeland Security employees informing them that some will have to be furloughed because of democrats. A blatant lie. 3/

Here is an email to all Small Business Administration employees with suggested out of office reply language. So, we’re sending you home without pay, and here’s some language blaming the democrats. 2/

NEW: THREAD: Just a small collection of propaganda emails sent by the regime to federal employees who have sent them to me on the condition of anonymity. First, we all saw the HUD banner from Tuesday morning. 1/

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.” ― Jane Goodall 💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

A reminder that the Trump-Vance administration is informed by #McCarthyism and specifically the influence of #RoyCohn. #Trump, #Vance, #Vought, et al. had a mobster mentality right out of the gate. They're also un-American, because they can't pick and choose which states count as part of the U.S.A.

Funding for infrastructure projects is not a political pawn. New Yorkers reject this asinine, authoritarian move. And we will not back down.

Take note of how the #Trump administration invokes God and the Bible and then treats some of the world's most vulnerable people this way. The Sermon on the Mount does not offer a blessing to the merciless.

We're less than a day into this shutdown and Trump & Vought are illegally punishing Democrat-led states. This administration is clearly salivating at the opportunity to hurt people and using the shutdown THEY caused as the pretext to do it. These mafioso tactics WILL NOT WORK.

@clfametrodc.bsky.social, have an awesome #October! 🎃 And for fun cat content, check out photos by RebaSpike on Pixabay. This trio clearly does not suffer fools, fascists, foolish fascists, or fascist fools gladly. #ClawsOut 🐾

On #WETAClassical's Choral Showcase tonight: a recording of Orff's Carmina Burana that features baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, whose 100th birthday we mark this year, and performances of the 13th source material. Tune in or stream at 9 p.m. EDT. weta.org/fm/features/... #FischerDieskau100

Are you a federal government employee? Do you work with or have insight into DOGE? Do you work at Treasury and/or Bureau of Fiscal Service? If you’re any of the above please contact me using a non-work device. You can find me on Signal at LBarron07.01

Here's one more image of the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Midtown Manhattan. I thought it would help to see the poor man of Assisi and the angels. I took this photo on a beautiful spring day in 2023, when the world seemed a very different place.